To be perfectly honest, after devoting nearly 12 years of my life to watching Grey's Anatomy, I'm pretty sure I can perform a tracheostomy using a pen or a straw. If you have ever watched even a single episode, you feel prepared to ask for a scalpel to start a huge surgery (maybe even while having the other hand on a bomb inside your patient). Every "neuro" page, every "psych" page, and every PET or CT scan that is requested, makes me more and more fascinated about the most important, and least understood, organ in the human body: the brain. Even today, with all the technology present and active research, people are unaware of everything the brain can do and how it functions. Subsequently, even the known facts of the brain are generally theories rather than definite. Since many diseases such as epilepsy and Alzheimer's have become present in a larger population of people, the government has just recently began to raise its spending on brain
research. To me, one of the most fascinating functions of the brain occurs when we are not cognizant of our surrounds: when we are sleeping. While your body is asleep, your blood pressure drops, your muscles are relaxed, your breathing and heart rate slow down, and energy for the day to come is restored. So why is it that while your body is theoretically "off", your brain still has the capability to dream?
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Dreams allow you to explore the world
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To clarify, there is no definitive answer to why people and other organisms dream. Rather, many theories and hypothesis have been given. One explanation to why people dream is based upon a
defense mechanism dating back to the early foundations of biology. During sleep, the brain may stimulate a threatening event to prepare the mind for how to act if this event were to actually occur. With this theory, it can be implied that people who are surrounded by a great deal of threatening occurrences will have more dreams that "exercise the mind" for real-life preparation.
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| Highlighted is the Amygdala: the part of the brain that initiates the instinctive "flight or fight" action |
Another explanation to why we dream can be explained through the
activation-synthesis model which states that during the REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, the brain's cortex inhibits signals from the sensory system from reaching the cortex. Instead, the structures that bring sensory signals from the sensory system to the cortex create PGO waves that lead to the activation of the cornea. This action keeps the brain functioning. With the increase in brain activity, dreams occur due to the cortex interpreting these waves and disruptions.
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| A CT scan of brain activation in REM as opposed to NREM 1 (the beginning of relaxation where arousal is easy) |
A third theory of why we dream is to absorb all of the information we gathered throughout the previous day. During sleep, the brain processes everything that was learned within the day and attempts to understand it. With the help of images and mental emotions, the brain can make cognizant decisions on how to react in the event of seeing what was learned in the day at another time.
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| A touch of humor to activate your medial prefrontal cortex |
The reason behind dreams is not the only night time process that scientists cannot come to a conclusion about. The purpose of sleep in general has been disputed since the beginning of time. Some believe that people and animals sleep for the sole purpose of memory consolidation, others think it occurs to empty the brain of
toxic metabolic byproducts, and some note it as a period to de-stress and be at peace. This scientific indecisiveness only further shows that if scientists do not understand the reason behind why we sleep, it is just that much more difficult for them to discover why we dream.
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| A sleeping nugget engrossed in discover dreams to chase |
As previously mentioned, psychologists, neuroscientists, and researchers of the brain have yet to come to a full consensus on the true reason behind dreams. In spite of that, besides the occasional nightmare, dreams are where the mind can wonder, where you can get lost in fantasy, where you can be whomever and whatever you want to be, where you can see pigs fly. So regardless of the science, "dream on. Dream on.
Dream until your dreams come true."
